Charged with jubilant African-rooted rhythms and an exploratory melodic force, Afro-Cuban jazz is the original Latin jazz. This hodgepodge of disparate stylistic configurations emerged from the lively block parties of immigrant New York in the ‘40s as a Caribbean-inflected art form that twists and turns in every corner—whether that’s with Dizzy Gillespie’s riveting trumpet riffs or Eddie Palmieri’s piano-pounding antics. Through the ‘60s and ‘70s, the feisty Fania All-Stars—a tropical music collective featuring the likes of Tito Puente and Ray Barretto— elevated the genre further with a more robust sound and piercing, hard-knocks storytelling.